I have an anacharis and mossball from petsmart in QT for use in my shrimp tank. The questions are:

1. I noticed five small snails, several mm, in the QT vase last week. I removed and killed them. Several days later I noticed three more small snails, 2-3 mm, in it and killed them too. Yesterday I noticed three more the same size as the last ones. I was busy and planned on removing them today, but I can't see them now, although I know that they're there. Howerver, this morning I noticed several white worms about a cm long and very skinny, wiggling around. How do I get rid of them and the snails?

2. How do I prune the anacharis? It's so tall it almost above water level, and the vase is filled to the top.

To be honest, there's a good chance you won't be able to get all of the snails off, ever. You can try washing in a weak bleach or potassium permanganate solution with very hot water, though. Depends on the plants.

I think I have had the same worms in my 10 g tank as well. I had bought a mossball and plant from Petsmart. Eventually I started to see the tiny worms all over my tank. I quarantined the mossball and saw more worms crawling on it so I threw it out.

I let things be for several weeks hoping the problem would subside but by then and my tank had even more worms. Some like you describe, and probably thousands of tiny glass clinging and freefloating worms that were 1-2mm in length. I had moved some of the plant into another newly dirted tank and the worms appeared there as well. I tried not to overfeed but perhaps I failed to so.

To get rid of the worms I tore down the tanks, let them sit empty with the equipement inside, and got rid of the substrate. I then added a pinch of powdered dog dewormer. I placed all of the plants and decor inside of a bucket and overdosed them with dewormer. After 48 hours I cleaned and rinsed everything and haven't seen the worms since. That is not to say that they will be gone for good but they have been gone for a month or two now.

I think this also wiped out my snail problem. The snail issue came from plants that I didn't buy from Petsmart. Some of the snail eggs were on the plants after the treatment so I removed them and I can't remember if I manually removed them all or left some. I haven't seen any snails again.

I've only had my plants for a few days but so far all I've noticed is a few tiny snails. I just ignore them, as it's not like they're overrunning the tank. I'll try the cucumber/lettuce method if they get to be a problem.

Judging by the description of the worms mentioned they will likely be one of two things:

1) Planaria
These are a species of flat worm and normally have a pointed head. They vary in size from a couple of mm long to a few cm and are often carnivorous however they will not harm a betta. Their colours vary from white to cream, pink to brown to black.

2) Detritus worms
Detritus worms live in the substrate of an aquarium and are completely natural in the enclosed ecosystem like our tanks, they help decompose the mulm in the substrate. If the tank is overfed or the substrate is not regularly vaccumed the detritus worm populations can explode and these things can be seen in the water column and on the sides of the tank. They are usually 1 to 3 mm long and are as thin as hairs, they will be white or translucent white. They can also be seen swimming in "s" shapes in the water column if populations are high enough. Some are slightly thicker than hairs but never exceed that width.

Both are harmless and can come in with aquarium plants. Detritus worm explosions can happen alongside copepod explosions during a tank's cycling process (especially where one is doing a fishless cycle using fish food). If a population explosion occurs in a tank with animals that take in oxygen solely through their gills it might be wise to add an air stone until the problem subsides. The detritus worms usually leave the gravel when populations increase due to lack of oxygen in there - it's nothing to worry about but the airstone may relieve some of the pressure :).

Both may be eaten by bettas (mine have certainly had no problems devouring detritus worms in the past) and manually removed through the use of a gravel cleaner.

Detritus worms will often go in time if feeding is reduced and tank maintenance increased. Planaria/flatworms can be removed manually or by sucking them up in a turkey baster and removing them.